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Of all the traits attributed to Women on the Autism Spectrum, there remains one that not only continues to go unrecognized as a valid trait but has also suffered the fate of being reconstructed by professionals as a rationale for denying Women a diagnosis.

The trait I’m referring to is that of developing a strong sense of self-awareness.

In almost every description pertaining to the experiences of Women with Asperger’s Syndrome there is evidence of the development of an early, inexplicable sense of ‘otherness,’ to be found.

This sense of ‘otherness’ expands exponentially as girls grow older and develops into a keen sense of self-awareness.

Their strong sense of self-awareness in turn, increases their sensitivity toward any and all experiences that suggest or confirm their perceptions of themselves as different.

Undoubtedly, whilst at school, undiagnosed spectrum girls will find themselves showered, almost daily, with an endless array of situations that expose their responses and reactions as differing from those around them.

As a result, many spectrum girls may find it difficult to relate to their peers and feel that they have very little, if anything at all, in common with them.

Given that young girls are not yet bound by the pressure to conform, many will quiet happily choose to pursue their own interests instead of seeking to feign an interest in the activities of their peers.

Early schoolyard experiences can therefore be seen to reinforce and exacerbate the already strong sense of ‘otherness’ that many young girls on the spectrum feel yet do not necessarily view as being an issue for them.

It is not until the teenage years arrive that ‘feeling different’ truly becomes an issue.

During this time, the combined weight of parental, peer and societal pressures to conform begins to bear down on them.

Suddenly they find that any and all previous levels of tolerance and acceptance towards their uniqueness of being, are replaced with the message that their right to happily pursue their own interests, has been irrevocably and irrationally rescinded without their consent.

Now they are expected to act like everyone else and enjoy participating in only those activities that are deemed appropriate for teenage girls to engage in.

These radical and unexpected changes usher in a period of overwhelming personal confusion and sensory overload as the ability to escape into their own comfortable zones of ‘personal interest’ are stripped unceremoniously away from them.

During this time, some Spectrum girls will begin to experience melt downs due to not being able to escape either the sensory or the emotional pressures that surround them.

Often these meltdowns will mistakenly be viewed as deliberate acts of rebellion and punished accordingly.

Some spectrum girls, on the other hand, will set their minds to the task of trying to figure out exactly what the new rules of engagement are in order to seek out any loopholes that may still allow them to continue to pursue their own interests without falling foul of their peers.

This is often a process of trial and error which still has the potential to attract punishment for any and all inadvertent social infractions.

Yet no matter which option an undiagnosed teenage girl chooses the consequence all tend to lead to the same experience of psychological harm.

Psychological harms experienced include:

An extreme sense of personal disorientation

Confusion over what has taken place.

Erosion of their formerly strong sense of self.

Self-doubt.

The onset of the belief that being different is equivalent to being wrong.

Creation of the belief that no one will ever like them for whom and how they truly are.

Acceptance of the idea that they cannot be themselves and still be liked.

The combination of all of these psychological harms explains the overwhelming sense of social confusion, lack of self-esteem, lack of confidence and the propensity for self-doubt that many (both diagnosed and undiagnosed) adult Autistic women report experiencing.

It is worth noting that all of the negative messages that undiagnosed Autistic girls/women experience whilst growing up, produce the same responses that one would expect to find in an individual who has been the victim of prolonged emotional and psychological manipulation or abuse.

Another term that has more recently been applied to describe the way in which this form of emotional and psychological manipulation can be subtly delivered is Gas-lighting.

Gas-lighting is renowned for creating a sense of personal disorientation and self-doubt in those to whom it is applied.

Yet sadly, the process of gas-lighting for undiagnosed teenage girls does not end upon their reaching adulthood.

For many women who recognize themselves within the folds of female Autism later in life, the process of seeking understanding and validation in the form of a diagnosis from a professional, often leads to yet another round of gas-lighting.

If a woman expresses the capacity to recognize and understand that she may be Autistic, she’s then told by professionals, that she’s too self-aware to be on the Autism Spectrum and is summarily dismissed.

If a woman expresses feeling that she may have been let down by others or betrayed by a society that only values certain ways of being, she is told by professionals, that she has a persecution complex and is summarily dismissed.

If a woman expresses the capacity to feel love, empathy or even hints at the potential for having a sense of humor, she’s told by professionals, that she can’t be on the Autism Spectrum as Autistic people (according to some) lack the ability to feel any of these things.

If a woman’s married, in a relationship or has children, she’s told by professionals, that she can’t be on the Autism Spectrum as she obviously has both the capacity to maintain a relationship and care for others. Autistic women (supposedly) cannot do this.

If a woman is single, reclusive and/or unemployed, she’s told by professionals, that she’s suffering from depression and that all of her other issues will go away once she begins medication and starts getting out more.

And worst of all, if a woman is educated, articulate and well-informed about Female Autism and why she feels she belongs within it, she’s often told by professionals that she’s making things up about herself in order to gain attention and is instead diagnosed as having either a Personality Disorder or Bi-Polar Disorder.

The tendency of those within the psychological profession to constantly deny the validity of an Autistic woman’s understandings of herself by instead reinterpreting and reinventing her words as evidence that she is too self-aware to be on the Autism spectrum, is in itself, the ultimate form of Gas lighting.

There are many websites, blogs and books that provide lists of traits that are purportedly said to be the common signs of Asperger’s Syndrome in Females.

However, each and every one of these lists has a tendency to focus exclusively on the outward signs of Asperger’s Syndrome in women.

Signs like:

‘difficulties with social interaction’,

‘dislike of small talk’,

‘poor co-ordination’,

‘fixation on special interests’,

‘preference for spending time alone’

I‘m sure by now we are all nauseatingly familiar with the above list of symptoms.

Perhaps we’ve even become so familiar with these lists that we’ve stopped looking for the traits that have been missed.

Well here’s a trait that continues to remain unlisted, although I cannot for the life of me understand why this should be so, as it is a trait that has been mentioned over and over again, by every woman with Asperger’s Syndrome that I’ve ever communicated with.

In fact, it may even be the one trait that is common to every woman with Asperger’s Syndrome.

And that trait is:

The early personal recognition, awareness or sensation that they feel, think and perceive the world differently to those around them.

“I can’t remember a time when I didn’t feel different to everyone else”.

“I’m pretty sure I was born different. No two ways about that.”

“Different is something I’ve always been.”

“I must have been the oddest child on earth. I know I certainly felt that way.”

“Evan as a kid, I felt, I don’t know, just different to my sisters and brothers.”

Given that this sense of personal awareness occurs long before the outward signs of Asperger’s Syndrome appear, it is perfectly logical to hypothesize that the early onset of this awareness may indeed be the exact reason why the outward signs of Asperger’s first appear to others.

“I didn’t like doing the same things that kids my age did, so I used to just go off and do my own thing.”

“I could never understand why other girls wanted to play with dolls. Dolls were boring to me.”

I believe that this early personal sense of ‘not fitting in’ or of ‘not belonging’ within one’s own family, peer group or circle of friends, needs to be considered as one of the fundamental indicators of Asperger’s Syndrome or High Functioning Autism in females.

It therefore strikes me as extremely odd that researchers, psychologists and other related professionals’ continue to ignore the one experience that, so far, appears to be common to all AS Women, and instead focus on ideas such as ‘masking’.

Imagine how many girls could be helped if all it took to recognize their potential for being on the spectrum entailed the asking of just one simple question.

“In the absence of significant intellectual or behavioral problems, girls with ASD-like traits are more likely than boys to evade a diagnosis of ASD.” Spectrum.

Academics, researchers and professionals’ need to stop using terms such as “evading diagnosis” and “masking symptoms” when discussing female Autism.

In essence, what they’re really discussing when they apply terms such as these, are their own inabilities to correctly identify Autism in women.

There is absolutely no value to be found in perpetuating the myth that women with Autism run around wilfully trying to avoid detection simply because professionals have become lackluster within the confines of their own diagnostic processes.

As a woman with Autism I can tell you that we are not running around trying to avoid detection.

In fact, we’d actually quite like it if all professionals developed the ability to recognize female Autism in girls sooner, faster, more adeptly and at a much younger age than say, oh I don’t know, 40.

Perhaps then, the facts that girls and women with Autism experience as many sensory and processing difficulties throughout their lives as boys and men with Autism do, can be openly acknowledged and understood by all.

Perhaps then, there wouldn’t be so many undiagnosed women trying to desperately figure out why they’ve always felt so awkward around other people and berating themselves for being so different.

Perhaps then, we’d also have seen more changes within the diagnostic process had the discussions surrounding female Autism focused less on our techniques of supposed evasion, and more on the inabilities of professional’s to accurately detect and diagnose female Autism in the first place.

No amount of double talk should detract us from the fact that improvements for women with Autism will only occur once the flaws in the area of diagnostic accuracy have been addressed.

Especially considering that we can’t technically diagnose ourselves, regardless of how thoroughly we research Autism or how deeply we ponder the prospect.

The only option left to us, it would seem, is to strive to change the parameters under which knowledge pertaining to Female Autism is currently being collected and constructed.

So it’s up to us to point academic researchers in the right direction when it comes to female Autism because apparently if we don’t, they’ll simply all keep listening to each-others bad ideas and encouraging each-other to see traits that aren’t really there whilst continuing to ignore those traits which really are.

This is a somewhat ironic state of affairs considering that we’re the ones who are supposed to lack the ability to see the bigger picture.

We’re also supposed to lack the capacity for self-awareness, yet all a researcher really needs to do these days, is type in the search terms ‘female + Autism + Blog’ and they’ll soon have all the evidence they need to confirm that we are indeed an extremely self-aware bunch.

Older, undiagnosed, women, frequently find that their families / friends have fallen into the habit of viewing their differences in particularly negative and unflattering ways that detract from their ability to view themselves as potentially Autistic.

They often experience the indignity of hearing family members, both young and old, refer to them as “lazy”, “weird”, “odd’, “anti-social”, “hard to get along with”, “overly sensitive”, “moody” and “unreasonable” people.

The impacts of being viewed in this way, by the very people who are meant to love and accept you, cannot be discounted.

Especially since these impacts often serve only to further confuse those women who already sense that are ‘different’ from others, yet hold no explanation as to why or how this should be so.

Being continuously discredited in such a way by their family, not only undermines an undiagnosed Autistic woman’s self-confidence, but it also makes it harder for her to believe that there may be a legitimate reason for her experience of ‘difference’.

As a result, many undiagnosed women describe the sensation of ‘teetering of the edge” of self-awareness and acceptance, yet, still never quite being able to commit fully to the belief that they may be different for any reasons, other than the ever burgeoning list of negatives they’ve become accustomed to hearing.

For this reason, many undiagnosed women, quite literally feel that they require a formal diagnosis in order for their family and friends to accept that their “odd” behaviors are the result of sensory and processing differences and not the result of a wilfully lazy, or ignorant mind.

And therein lies the rub.

When a woman who’s not only perceived herself as being different in some unknown, unnamed kind of way her entire life, but has also received multiple negative messages from those around her for those differences, becomes brave enough to ask to be assessed for Autism, she is often confronted with a yet another litany of negative messages.

Even the term “seeking a diagnosis” which is very similar to another term also applied to women, “attention seeking”, makes it sound as if women are going out of their ways to “seek” a diagnosis.

Yet often the truth of the matter is that women are not doing this.

They are seeking answers and they do so usually, only after months, or even years of contemplation and research.

Most women are therefore aware of the fact that they may be Autistic long before they contact a psychologist.

Yet despite their high levels of self-awareness and Autism related knowledge, they find that form the very moment they sit in front of a psychologist and state that they “feel different to everyone else,” they are confronted with a pre-ordained set of red flags that go up in a psychologists mind, upon hearing those very words.

To this end, most psychologists will settle into the task, not of assessing these women for Autism, but of looking for any signs that the women concerned may be mentally ill, delusional, attention seekers.

Now let’s just stop and consider that last sentence for a minute and ask ourselves why it should be that any woman, upon requesting an assessment for Autism, should first find herself in the predicament of having to address a psychologists immediate concerns that she may be mentally ill, before any Autism assessment can take place.

There seems to be something wrong with a diagnostic process in which the first step serves to scare, intimidate or cause doubt in the minds of women, due to the fact that it often reinforces all of the negative ideations they’ve grow accustomed to hearing about themselves from their families.

For this reason, some women will become consumed with either fear or self-doubt and choose to end the diagnostic process before it’s even begun.

Those who continue on, do so under the weight of the understanding that, regardless of whether or not they are found to have Autism, they will most likely to be labelled with something, simply by virtue of the fact that they are continuing on within a diagnostic process that is designed to find something amiss.

The practice of conducting Autism assessments in such a manner may also explain why there are currently so many different, co-occurring psychological conditions, associated with Autism.

If we note the precarious position that any woman is placed in when “seeking” an Autism assessment, and add this to the already well-established past propensity of psychologists to either miss of dismiss, the signs and symptoms of Autism in women, we can begin to see why many formally undiagnosed Autistic women view the diagnostic process as being far more fraught with potential hazards than with potential answers.

Hence, undiagnosed Autistic women, often find themselves situated between a rock and a hard place, as they often urgently require the validity of a diagnosis in order for their family and friends to take their concerns, feelings and experiences seriously.

Yet, in order to attain that diagnosis, they must willingly submit themselves to the critical gaze of a psychologist, whose first point of call is to assess, not whether they have Autism, but whether or not they are mentally ill.

Is this fair?

Definitely not.

Yet this is the way it is for adults, especially women, who wish to be assessed for Autism.

And unfortunately it gets worse.

Within the diagnostic process the psychologist holds all of the power.

Psychologists are human beings, and just like the rest of us; they go about their days complete with their own sets of values, beliefs, likes and dislikes, skills and flaws.

So whilst they may be certified to practice, that certification in and of itself, holds no guarantee what so ever, as to whether or not they are up to date with current studies regarding female Autism, or even whether or not they are ethical human beings.

The idea of trusting a complete stranger becomes even more of an issue for women wishing to be assessed for Autism as they too often find themselves in the un-enviable position of being forced to entrust their most vulnerable selves to a person of whom they hold no understanding or awareness, beyond the context of office walls.

This is no mean feat.

Especially considering that clients (female and male) do not find out whether or not that trust has been misplaced until after all of the assessments have been carried out.

It is only at the end of the diagnostic process, once all the fees have been charged and the bills paid, that a woman may discover whether or not her diagnostic trust has been well placed.

If it has been well placed, then a diagnosis of Autism may be given.

Should it transpire that a diagnosis of Autism be considered unwarranted, then there will be no further diagnostic decision made about any woman, without the express consent of the woman concerned.

If a woman’s trust has been misplaced, then the ramifications and consequences of being misdiagnosed with a condition that not only exasperates her difficulties, but further encourages others to dismiss her, may prove disastrous.

And still, even in some situations where a diagnosis of Autism is given, a woman may still find herself in the situation of having inappropriate and/or highly personal information about herself, divulged to third parties without their consent, due to an overall lack of ethical practice on the part of the psychologist.

The diagnostic process may not be for everyone, but for those who need or want to pursue it, it’s best to go into it with eyes wide open.

Completely aware that despite the many improvements that have occurred regarding our understandings of Women with Autism, there are never, ever, any guarantees.

“You cannot determine a person’s intellectual capacity, personality, political view or personal interests,” based on their appearance alone.

Nor can you accurately “assess a person’s character by noting whether or not they are fit, fat, frail, thin, old, young, able-bodied, disabled, black, white, tattooed, male or female.” Quotes from T. Moss

It is entirely irrational to believe that one can judge the character of another person, based purely on their appearance.

We know this.

Yet there are still so many people out there who believe that they can judge the capacity of an individual with Asperger’s Syndrome / Autism, to feel love, joy, compassion and empathy, based on little more than an observation of our facial expressions or the focus of our eyes.

Please stop doing this.

We’ve already explained to you, that for us, making eye contact can be difficult and that often, our internal feelings do not match our external expressions.

So please stop judging us based solely on your interpretation of our appearances.

Or haven’t you heard?

‘Appearances can be deceiving.’

And we should know, because you’re the ones who taught us that.

When it comes to plastering on a ‘fake smile’ and pretending that ‘there’s nothing wrong’, you guys are the experts.

Not us.

Never-the-less, we’re not judging you.

Or calling you cold-hearted liars, simply because you can all smile, without even wanting too.

You see, life has already taught us that sometimes in this world, it’s not how you look, but what you see, that makes all the difference.

Each and every person lives a life that is unique to them. Therefore, even though we may all experience life with Asperger’s / Autism, it does not automatically follow that we also experience every aspect of ‘life’ or Autism, or even ‘life with Autism, in exactly the same ways.

One person’s lived experience, knowledge and truth, is exactly that.

One person’s.

We are all born into different circumstances.

We all have different experiences, learn different lessons and gleam different aspects of knowledge and truth, based on these experiences.

Sharing similar ways of interpreting or understanding the world around us, is not the same as ‘living the same life.’

We share a diagnostic label, not a life.

Please recognize and respect this fact and stop trying to ascribe the understandings, beliefs and personal preferences of one individual with Autism, to all individuals with Autism.

We are not mirror images of each other.

We are all different.

And we deserve to have our differences understood and treated with respect because our differences matter.

For example, the experiences of an adult female, diagnosed later in life, will be very different to those of an adult male, diagnosed early in life.

Whilst one may have grown up feeling ‘lost’, ‘alone’ or made to feel ashamed of her differences, the other may have grown up with all the benefits of self-understanding, self-awareness and being encouraged to take pride in his ‘different-ness’.

While each individual’s experience needs to be understood as being equally valid interpretations and expressions of what it is to live an Autistic life, they also equally need to be understood as being validly different.

The act of preferencing one set of experiences over the other, leads to the negation of not just one narrative, but to the negation all narratives that do not fit neatly within the confines of that which becomes the preferred story of the‘ Autistic experience’.

Just to be clear on this, there is no correct way to experience Autism.

There are instead, many equally valid, equally real and equally genuine ways to experience Autism.

Yet some within our society continuously seek to preference and promote only one particular version of Autistic life.

We cannot and should not allow either ourselves or others, to fall into the trap of ‘negating’ the many difference to be found within in the Autistic experience, simply because it’s being presented to us under the guise of ‘creating Autism awareness.

All Autistic experiences are valid regardless of age, gender or socio-cultural and economic influences.

To believe that any one experience is any more important or worthwhile than another is to perpetuate both the myth that there is a ‘correct way’ to experience Autism, and that all ‘Autistic people are the same.’